


Darkness Between Fireflies

by Poemsingreenink



Series: Sing To The End [7]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Copious amounts of alcohol - Freeform, Discussion of Pregnancy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-29 22:28:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19839796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poemsingreenink/pseuds/Poemsingreenink
Summary: Emma, Billy and Goodnight get very drunk. Emma talks about the past and the present.





	Darkness Between Fireflies

“A man full of drink is a beast,” her mother had once told Emma. “I don’t allow beasts in my home, at my table or around my children. When he decides to act like a man you can open the door to your father. Until then he sleeps with the pigs, and can fend for himself.”

It was a position Emma had adopted, and she’d made her feelings around alcohol crystal clear when she and Mathew has been wed. 

She’d only had to reaffirmed that position once when Mathew had stumbled back to the farm drunk as a skunk.

She’s locked the door, and refused to open it until he’d sobered up, washed the whiskey from his person and apologized for acting like a fool. He’d slept and thrown up in the cow pasture (not in that order), and shown up the next night scrubbed pink as a newborn and holding a bouquet of freshly picked daisies.

“The flowers are appreciated, but you do this again and I’ll leave you to go live with Leni.”

He’d never done it again.

* * *

Most of the alcohol that Goodnight and Billy insisted on consuming was watered down horse piss at best or sight-stealing rotgut at worst. How neither of them was dead thanks to the combination of alcohol, opium and knife fighting was the devil’s own luck. But a recent victory had landed a bottle of thick glass in Goodnight’s hands that contained a “whiskey so smooth it could slide a saint straight into Hell”.

Which was how Emma’d found herself curled close to their campfire, going shot for shot with two dear cowboys, and so drunk that the star filled sky seemed to twist and turn like a sheet of wet laundry being wrung out.

Billy was smoking a cigarette, and Goodnight had his forehead pressed to Billy’s shoulder as they sat in the grass. His hand was resting in Billy’s thigh, and Emma’s whisky soaked brain hoped that hand wouldn’t start traveling. There were some lines that friendships needed to stay intact. 

“My mama always told me it wasn’t proper for women and children to see their husbands or fathers drunk,” Emma announced. 

“Good thing we’re not either of those to you then,” Billy said. 

“Your not freckled enough to be my father,” Emma said dismissively. “You need...at least a thousand more freckles to be my father.”

Billy linked his fingers through Goodnight’s hand, and tipped his head back to blow a line of smoke rings into the stars.

“Aw  _cher_. You’re holding my hand,” Goodnight cooed. 

“Just don’t hold anything else until I fall asleep,” Emma said, voice far too think and relaxed for the absolutely mortifying words she’d just unleashed.

Billy laughed, loud and bright. Goodnight gave him a wet kiss on the cheek, and then grinned at Emma.

“Never! I am still a man of the most genteel breeding, Mrs. Cullen. I’m shocked and awed at such a suggestion.”

He took another pull from the whisky bottle, and then settled back against Billy’s side. 

“What was her policy on drunk mothers?” Billy asked.

“There are no drunk mother’s, Billy. Just fallen women. Disgraces to the entire sex. My mama never touched a drop. Even for medicinal reasons. Even during labor!The midwife ended up sharing her bottle of medicine with me while my mama slept off the birth!”

She was giggling now, and flopped back into the grass arms outstretched. 

“I mean, she deserved the sleep. She was exhausted. Screaming for so many hours, and then all that blood. I helped, but the midwife said I was whiter than sea foam, and it would help keep me on my feet.”

At eight Emma hadn’t seen the ocean yet, and wasn’t sure how white sea foam was. She’d wondered if it was paler than the dead babe the midwife had gently wrapped in cloth as her mother slept. The little sister Emma’d never gotten to hold or play with.

“I wanted children too. I like children! But I wanted them with Mathew. When I was with Mathew it was like....it was like my body wanted children,  and my heart. Now he’s gone, and they’ll be no children. Not for me.”

The stars were drifting across the sky. Bright balls of yellow fire that gently floated across the heavens. 

She lifted her head when one of the stars landed on her nose. 

“Oh.” She motioned to Billy and Goodnight. “These are fireflies not stars.”

Goodnight said, “You could remarry.” (His voice somewhat muffled since his face was still buried in Billy’s shoulder), at the same time Billy said “Go get pregnant if you want. We have money. It’ll work out.”

”We'll be godfathers,” Goodnight added.

Emma wanted another swing of the whisky, but the bottle was next to Goodnight and when she tried to stand her knees complained. So instead she flopped onto her side making Billy and Goodnight go horizontal in the only civilized way they could be around her. 

“I have engaged with some very......nice men over the years,” she said. “But my body doesn’t....it wants differently with them then it did with Mathew. I don’t know how to explain it!”

Her hands closed around large clumps of grass, and it was satisfying pulling them out of the ground.

“I don’t have the words. Do you think there are books that have them? You went to university Goody. There have to be books with the words I need in them.”

Goodnight had lifted his face from Billy’s shoulder, eyes bloodshot, and face slack. He looked uncomfortable and conflicted. As though he were turning a brand new concept over in his mind, and his fingers were getting caught on the sharp edges.

“I can’t say I know the answer to that,” he finally said. “It’s not a subject I ever paid much mind to.”

Emma pillowed her head in her arms, and while she was trying to decide how to respond to that fell asleep.

* * *

The next morning she threw up everything she’d ever eaten, and everything she’d even thought about eating while a herd of judgmental sheep looked on.

“Did my mama send you lot?” She grumbled. “Mind your own business.”

Goodnight had eggs frying by the time she got back from vomiting, and then peeing for what had felt like an eternity. She took the plate gratefully, but her stomach still felt too torn up to eat just yet.

At least Goodnight looked as bad as she felt, and Billy was still rolled up in his blankets. Dead to the world. 

“All in favor of not leaving this spot until tomorrow?” Emma asked.

“Aye.”

“All opposed?”

Goodnight cut a fond glance in Billy’s direction, but he slumbered on without comment. 

“Lovely, the ayes have it,” Emma said. “Please don’t speak to me for the rest of the day.”

**Author's Note:**

> -The title comes from the song “Darkness Between Fireflies“.
> 
> -At this point we’ll say they’ve been traveling together at least 3 years.
> 
> -Honestly, I wish I could hand Emma a reading list, but don’t know what would even be on that list today let alone in her time. (Anyone have suggestions? Sing out Louise)


End file.
